


o sleep (the certain knot of peace)

by chelfairy



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, Body Horror, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Dreams and Nightmares, Friendship, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Sleep, it's a subtle heavy angst, it's been a rainy few days and I'm not having a good time so, the focus is ed al and win and the others are just mentioned, the kids are not alright
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 11:34:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20275249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chelfairy/pseuds/chelfairy
Summary: Sometimes, Ed wakes up at night and he can almost pretend there’s no cylinders of unyielding steel in the milk white of his bones and that if he opens the window and peers out he’ll see home as it was, all those years ago, with the laundry swaying in the breeze and the saffron tinted glasses of innocence.





	o sleep (the certain knot of peace)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [deniseeeyy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deniseeeyy/gifts).

> hi, I watched fma in the space of two and a half days and the sad train won't leave the station 
> 
> (@denise the only hoe I can trust with my fledgling baby works)

Ed sleeps everywhere. Uncomfortable train cushions, weathered benches, hard hotel beds and that one couch by the window in Mustang’s office. 

After the transmutation he’d found it difficult to sleep. All of eleven years old and missing half his body, his whole brother, and the innocence of his childhood. Nyx had been his enemy, insomnia his bedmate.

But then Mustang had came, sweeping in with his night-dark coat, with his coal-dark hair and eyes, so filled with rage and anguish and fear that for a second Ed had felt _something_ other than the aching, echoing pain in limbs that no longer existed, and bone deep exhaustion. 

Surprisingly, sleep came easier. It’s like his subconscious urged him, to head into that mellow, colourless void, now that the Colonel had given him some semblance of a plan for the future, a future with his brother’s smile. 

And so sleep he does. In the oddest of places, and the most contorted positions, much to the amusement of anyone who finds him. He knows it bring’s Al some kind of peace, to watch him - however a soul can watch - when he lays his head on a hard knee and pulls a blanket haphazardly over his still slight shoulders, and the armour though cold and unyielding is miles more comfort than sometimes Ed thinks he is allowed.

For no reason except that of sickening pleasure the universe seems to draw from his misfortune, those days when he lets himself lean on his unfeeling metal brother, close his eyes, escape, Ed sleeps the best. 

Sometimes, Ed wakes up at night and he can almost pretend there’s no cylinders of unyielding steel in the milk white of his bones and that if he opens the window and peers out he’ll see home as it was, all those years ago, with the laundry swaying in the breeze and the saffron tinted glasses of innocence. He’ll turn over and beside him is his brother, is Al, _small and soft and whole_, the suit of armour merely a metal piece of the vague shadow their absent father left on their lives. 

Then he blinks the sleep out of his eyes, parts his bangs and bring his metal arm to part the curtains. The sun glows bright and gold in the sky, not too dissimilar to how it had been during his youth, but the sky is not that saffron and blue of Resembool of the past, and very rarely is there so much viridian outside his window. 

He stretches, greets his brother and prepares to count the hours until he can greet oblivion.

.

Al cannot sleep. At first it is not much, he doesn’t think that even if he had his body, even if he could feel anything beside the gnawing emptiness, that the vague horror he knows his mind locks up in heavy chains would hardly grant him respite. 

He knows because he stares - and how disconcerting it is to see without eyes, without blinking and the familiar strain of focus - at his brother, a shell in his own right, eyes just as empty as Al feels, but human, real, and beneath them smudges of charcoal that insomnia has so cruelly left on his young, haggard face. 

Time passes, slowly, quickly and in a blur that Al can barely track in his body that does not need to stop, does not need to rest, that does not need anything but the occasion bit of oiling; and Mustang comes and brother’s eyes do something expect stare in ever-growing rage and anguish and static emptiness like he’s as barely in what little is left of his body as Al is in the hulking shell he inhabits. 

Brother sleeps. But Al does not. _Al cannot_. 

For a little while that hurt. Hurts Al, almost to envy. And yet he can’t. Because now that he can see through the anguish and the rage in Ed’s eyes, which he transmutes so convincingly into a drive so passionate it burns, his guilt is crystal clear and a mile thick, so large and weighty that Al does not think, even in this body he could bare it.

Instead Al holds vigil. He sits in the moonlight, reads, listens and watches. 

He cannot envy, when he watches Hypnos takes his brothers mind to that place between dreams and living, because his brother is so small, from his viewpoint, so slight, breakable, a child with adults eyes; weighed down by his automail, his promises and thoughts, heavy, heavy thoughts that Al knows just as well, from his nights awake under the brightness of distant stars, and a dark, unforgiving moon. 

Ed wakes up to sunlight on his cheek, like the well-meaning touch of a mother, and Al thinks that if he still had a mouth it be filled with the bitter taste of gall. Instead he tastes nothing, expect maybe regret, for the loss of innocence, peace, comfort on his brothers face. 

Ed’s metal arm reaches out, warm not from blood, but from convection, and how Al wishes he could touch and feel to know. Awake like this his brother is an inferno, molten golden on fragile, reinforced bones, and Al waits until the sun sets and Ed cools, and sleep claims returns to him, Ed, his brother, Ed, who once seemed unbreakable can break in peace. 

.

Winry doesn’t sleep much. In her youth there was much to do, much too much to do for her to close her eyes and just go. Too many thoughts for a quiet mind and rest. There were interesting things to study, automail to build, time to spend with her mother, father, granny, Ed and Al and auntie Trisha. 

And then her parents were gone, auntie Trisha was gone, and making automail had always been her dream, and granny needed help, especially if Ed and Al were staying, and they had to stay, because Winry never realised how _little_ she had until half of it was gone; sleep was a trivial thing in the face of what she could be doing. 

What she has is halved again, and how now can she waste time sleeping when Al, sweet, gentle Al is a fortified shell, empty and awake, forever awake; when Ed sits in a chair half of him gone, _clean to bone_ granny had said, _clean to the bone_. How could she sleep when she could be doing something?

Sometimes when she does sleep, gives herself that moment between work and worrying, she hears her fathers voice, _wrenches can’t fix everything_, but damn if there’s something they can, she will use it do so. 

So even before the Colonel and the Lieutenant come in their pressed uniforms, the colour of midnight and the subconscious, Winry has plans, sketches and prototypes, because Edward and Alphonse Elric cannot spend their lives confined like this, and she knows well enough, wrenches can’t fix everything, but they can help her build an arm, a leg and hopefully that will be enough. 

She regrets it sometimes, when she really hasn’t slept at all and the world and her work and their mission all seem impossible and overwhelming; when she should really be sleeping but she can’t because she doesn’t know how Ed is sleeping, _if he’s sleeping at all_, and when Al isn’t, couldn’t and _does he sit in silence and wish for what she dismisses so readily_? 

When Ed returns, his golden eyes wise and his hair longer, short and skinny, but bigger somehow, larger than before, Al a massive silver shadow behind him, she smiles and yells, about her precious automail, throws her tools about to hide her concern in his bumps and bruises, the scratches and chinks in the armour. 

At dinner she hands him a glass and its filled with milk, white, chilling, bone-white and Ed complains and sulks, and Al chides him with that same reproachfulness that auntie Trisha had, and _really Ed its no wonder they think Al’s older than you, you won’t even drink your milk!_ And how Winry wishes that pearly liquid was the water of lethe, and that all it would take is a couple of drops and Ed would forget, and maybe if Ed forgot, and God was kind Al would return and the past few years of her life could just be a hapless nightmare that she can awake from. 

But Winry sleeps so little she can’t even remember when her mind had felt the need to punish her as such. Reality, whether beneath the unrelenting heat of the sun or the cool breeze of faraway stars and a lonely moon, had always been punishment enough.

**Author's Note:**

> im posting this when I should acc be sleeping, not beta read and so if there's any errors shout em art me in the comments. 
> 
> I'll write a longer peace when I feel less dead cuz of school you know,,,
> 
> kudos help kill my teenage angst, follow me @chelfairy on twt and talk fma to me


End file.
